Special Noah’s Ark Family Counseling Center’s The story began to be written as a result of our struggle together for my only child Noah, who is trapped in a world called “autism” that we do not know and do not understand.
Just as all babies brighten their mothers’ worlds, Noah brightened mine. However, Nuh’s autism diagnosis at the age of 20 months was the beginning of a completely different and challenging process that will never be closed in our lives.
Since then, we have applied to many institutions in Turkey and around the world to support Noah’s special needs and development. We have tried to provide him with every kind of education you can think of.
We have always known that continuity of education and maximum effort is the only way out in this process.
Noah joined this struggle with all his might. My dear son started running from one education to another even before he turned two. Even when we played together, we thought more about what and how to teach him than having fun.
We all worked together to adapt to life
Instead of being sad and blaming, we learned to be happy together even in the smallest developments, to be grateful, to be patient and to share our endless love together. We never lost hope, we always strived for more, we realized that tomorrow could promise us rewards we could not foresee.
However, since we had to receive different trainings from different institutions, we were drifting from one place to another. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the trainers were in different places, coordinated work or the complementarity of different disciplines, adhering to a holistic protocol, and progressing in a programmed manner within the objectives of a joint individual training program could not be achieved. We couldn’t even find a platform to evaluate the results, and the prices we paid reached very high levels. As we tried to live this situation within our nuclear family, what we heard from the outside and some voices coming from within the family were even turning us against each other from time to time. In fact, we needed help and support as parents in this process. We were very lonely… While our family members and friends were telling us about their children’s achievements, saying “how he walked, how he did it head to head, how he said “mom”, showed his father, laughed at him”, we were just silent. Day by day we were retreating into our own shells… When we saw that there were other families like us, then we started to return to real life a little more. We stopped worrying and wearing each other out, and concentrated on thinking about what we could do.
At this stage, in the light of the information/experiences we have gained both in Turkey and abroad, we decided to establish a center that can both support and receive support and offer a holistic function by bringing together all the knowledge and experience of the physicians who helped us immensely in the whole process, all the families we interviewed whose children had developmental problems, and the experts we worked with. At the same time, we started to provide family counseling services to families who need to fight continuously and never give up in this process.
I know that every child who is supported with intensive and correct education should fight continuously and never give up. I also know that the biggest responsibility in this process falls on the families and that no one should hesitate to seek help. Believe me, I know that you will definitely make progress.
We have been through this process, we are going through it. There is still time to win but we will do it.
Let’s succeed together!
Mine Nişlioğlu
Founder of Private Noah’s Ark Family Counseling Center
